1. Prior Application
The present invention relates, in general, to distribution and sales channel management for goods and services and, more particularly, to software, systems and methods for improving the resolution and usefulness of data related to direct and indirect sales channel participants and activities used for channel management.
2. Relevant Background
Efficient distribution of products is fundamental to an effective economy. As used herein, “products” include both goods and services. In many cases, distribution makes up a significant if not majority portion of the final cost. Hence, efficient distribution leads to higher profits and lower consumer prices. Moreover, efficient distribution tends to lead to higher consumer satisfaction and greatly reduced waste of resources, time, and money used to distribute the products. Various alternative distribution channels have been implemented to address the limitations of the retail channel. In direct sales channel a supplier creates their own marketplace and sells directly to the consumer. This gives the supplier a great deal of control and promises to reduce distribution costs. However, direct sales are a poor substitute when the marketing costs of reaching consumers and drawing them into the marketplace are sizable. As a result, the marketplace created by direct sales channels tends to be orders of magnitude smaller than the marketplace created by distribution channels.
Both consumers and businesses purchase products through distribution channels. Business-to-consumer channels and business-to-business channels are similar with the notable exception that business-to-business channels typically lack a retail outlet where goods/services are exchanged directly with a purchaser. In addition, business-to-business transactions often require a higher level of expertise and increased interaction between the seller and buyer. As a result, business-to-business channel participants rely more heavily on an efficient and accurate distribution channel. In both cases, however, many channel participants such as the producer, sales personnel, distributors, and the like may lose visibility of the activities of other participants. For example, it remains difficult for a manufacturer or producer to obtain information about the purchaser when a product is delivered to a post office box, loading dock, or first to a channel partner, who in turn delivers the products or services to a customer at a later time. After the initial transaction, the producer loses visibility of important distribution channel details.
The process of distribution generally involves actions taken to get products into a relevant marketplace where a consumer or end user makes a purchase decision. Sales and marketing personnel often initiate a transaction by taking and scheduling customer orders for goods and services. Production, stocking, product movement, and shipping activities occur to fulfill orders, but these activities often occur independently and in anticipation of orders. Hence, an order may be fulfilled by a shipment from any of a number of warehouse locations, and a salesperson or producer must rely on information from the distribution site to know where, when, and how order fulfillment occurs. Distribution channels may be multiple-tier (e.g., distributors and resellers) and, as a result, further obscure information relating to the end-customer from other channel participants.
At the same time, a customer may have several apparent identities. Many businesses operate under several names, or names that are abbreviated in different ways, and so will appear as different businesses to a distribution channel. Frequently, a business will have multiple delivery addresses either for different locations, or to implement internal distribution channels. For example, a corporate headquarter's address may have little or no relation to a loading dock address used for deliveries, or a post office box address used for customer returns. As a result, a salesperson may be dealing with one business apparent identity while a shipper or warehouse is dealing with a separate apparent identity. Hence, it may be difficult to match captured information to information used by sales/marketing personnel, producers, and other channel participants.
Because the distribution chain may obscure some data about the end-customer, the supplier loses a great deal of information related to buyer behavior. For example, a direct sales person responsible for an account may be unaware of sales made to a subsidiary of the customer that uses a different name, or is at a different address than the main account address known to the sales person. Such information would be useful to manage sales representative compensation, future production, product design, and marketing efforts, as well as to determine sales achievement levels for various organizational entities to determine whether business objectives were met. Hence, suppliers share the desire for product distribution solutions that make precise data about distribution chain events available to interested parties.